The effectiveness of motivational enhancement therapy on smoking cessation in college students

The effectiveness of Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET); (Miller & Rollnick, 1991) as a smoking intervention for college students was compared to a psychoeducational (PE) control group. Fifty-five college students participated in this study. Thirty students were randomly assigned to participate in three sessions of MET and 25 students were randomly assigned to the psychoeducational control group. The MET intervention included Motivational Interviewing, motivational feedback, strengthening the commitment to change, and strategies for follow through. The PE group participants were provided with information regarding the risks of smoking, viewed antismoking videos, and received supportive individual counseling. The results indicated that MET is no more effective than psychoeducation in helping college students quit smoking on measures of abstinence and number of cigarettes smoked daily. Students receiving MET did not display a significant increase in their ability to identify discrepancies in their smoking behavior or readiness to quit smoking, nor did they display a significant decrease in their resistance to quit smoking relative to students in the PE group. However, identifying discrepancies, readiness to quit, and resistance were all correlated with successful abstinence from smoking cigarettes at follow-up. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)